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Red Sox Great Ted Williams' Frozen Body Unpaid For

Aired August 13, 2003 - 13:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: "Sports Illustrated"'s reporting on a bizarre treatment of the body of baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams. The story says the remains are stored frozen in liquid nitrogen in tow steel containers at a lab in Arizona. One holds his body, the other, his head. Williams' son John had his father's body frozen in hopes that science can one day restore can bring him back to life.
"Sports Illustrated" legal analyst Lester Munson is with us now live from Chicago to talk more about this. I guess you could say, Lester, a bit of a creepy story.

LESTER MUNSON, LEGAL ANALYST, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED": Boy, this is the most bizarre story I've worked on. It is just -- you find yourself kind of watching a horror movie here at certain points as you go through the material.

PHILLIPS: Lester, what's going on? What's your impression here?

MUNSON: My impression is that John Henry William's, Ted's son, somehow got the idea that cryogenics might work. He had the idea that it would be a wonderful thing if his father, the legendary baseball player, the hero of two wars could somehow be revived by technological and scientific advances, so he engineered this entire thing.

His father wanted to be cremated, wanted his ashes spread over the fishing waters in Florida where he had spent so many wonderful hours. And instead, John Henry enlisted one of his sisters to help him on this and now we have this nightmare going on in the cryogenics lab in Scottsdale, Arizona.

PHILLIPS: OK now. And you looked -- and the name of this lab, Alcor -- you looked at, I'm seeing here, internal documents, e-mails, photographs, tape recordings. What did you find out?

MUNSON: What we found out is that this is a place that is mismanaged. They have trouble doing the things for people that they promised to do for them.

In the case of Ted Williams, the Alcor people thought this would be something that would precipitate explosive growth in their business. That has not happened. They were so excited about Ted Williams' body coming to Alcor that they managed to mix up everything that happened after Ted Williams' body arrived.

The head was separated from the body, probably by mistake. Then the body and the head have been damaged in numerous ways, as they've tried to store and freeze them for reviving later on at some point in the scientific future.

PHILLIPS: I was reading on here, according to some of these documents in the investigation, Lester, that now the son, John Henry is not even paying the bill. And according to the former CEO, Larry Johnson, and in his taped conversations a board member and an adviser joked about, quote, "throwing Williams' body away, posting it on eBay or sending it in a frosted cardboard box COD to John Henry's doorstep to persuade him to pay the bill."

Is anyone taking this seriously? I mean is this just a publicity stunt? I mean this is disturbing.

MUNSON: There's no question that John Henry has not paid. He was supposed to pay them $136,000, he paid them $25,000, he still owes them the rest of the money.

They are baffled at Alcor in Scottsdale, Arizona over what to do about the nonpayment. I don't think they have had this happen before. There is no question that they had those conversations, that those proposals were made. We have all of that on documents and on e-mails and tape recordings. And we double, and triple, checked it before we included that in our story.

We tried to ask John Henry, Why didn't you pay for this great thing that you claim you are doing? He refused to talk to us about anything involving his father.

PHILLIPS: All right, final question, Lester. So what happens? Ted Williams, you know, his head in one jar, his body in another. I mean this is gruesome. It just sits there until something is paid? What happens now?

MUNSON: Well it's as grotesque as anything can be.

One thing that you might hope would happen is that given the material that is in our article, the material that Larry Johnson, the former employee, has put together, maybe this material will be enough for the court in Florida to reconsider and to recapture Ted Williams' body and to do what his final wishes were to spread his ashes over the fishing waters near Florida.

PHILLIPS: Finally be able to rest in peace. Lester Munson, thank you so much.

MUNSON: You're welcome.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired August 13, 2003 - 13:21   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: "Sports Illustrated"'s reporting on a bizarre treatment of the body of baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams. The story says the remains are stored frozen in liquid nitrogen in tow steel containers at a lab in Arizona. One holds his body, the other, his head. Williams' son John had his father's body frozen in hopes that science can one day restore can bring him back to life.
"Sports Illustrated" legal analyst Lester Munson is with us now live from Chicago to talk more about this. I guess you could say, Lester, a bit of a creepy story.

LESTER MUNSON, LEGAL ANALYST, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED": Boy, this is the most bizarre story I've worked on. It is just -- you find yourself kind of watching a horror movie here at certain points as you go through the material.

PHILLIPS: Lester, what's going on? What's your impression here?

MUNSON: My impression is that John Henry William's, Ted's son, somehow got the idea that cryogenics might work. He had the idea that it would be a wonderful thing if his father, the legendary baseball player, the hero of two wars could somehow be revived by technological and scientific advances, so he engineered this entire thing.

His father wanted to be cremated, wanted his ashes spread over the fishing waters in Florida where he had spent so many wonderful hours. And instead, John Henry enlisted one of his sisters to help him on this and now we have this nightmare going on in the cryogenics lab in Scottsdale, Arizona.

PHILLIPS: OK now. And you looked -- and the name of this lab, Alcor -- you looked at, I'm seeing here, internal documents, e-mails, photographs, tape recordings. What did you find out?

MUNSON: What we found out is that this is a place that is mismanaged. They have trouble doing the things for people that they promised to do for them.

In the case of Ted Williams, the Alcor people thought this would be something that would precipitate explosive growth in their business. That has not happened. They were so excited about Ted Williams' body coming to Alcor that they managed to mix up everything that happened after Ted Williams' body arrived.

The head was separated from the body, probably by mistake. Then the body and the head have been damaged in numerous ways, as they've tried to store and freeze them for reviving later on at some point in the scientific future.

PHILLIPS: I was reading on here, according to some of these documents in the investigation, Lester, that now the son, John Henry is not even paying the bill. And according to the former CEO, Larry Johnson, and in his taped conversations a board member and an adviser joked about, quote, "throwing Williams' body away, posting it on eBay or sending it in a frosted cardboard box COD to John Henry's doorstep to persuade him to pay the bill."

Is anyone taking this seriously? I mean is this just a publicity stunt? I mean this is disturbing.

MUNSON: There's no question that John Henry has not paid. He was supposed to pay them $136,000, he paid them $25,000, he still owes them the rest of the money.

They are baffled at Alcor in Scottsdale, Arizona over what to do about the nonpayment. I don't think they have had this happen before. There is no question that they had those conversations, that those proposals were made. We have all of that on documents and on e-mails and tape recordings. And we double, and triple, checked it before we included that in our story.

We tried to ask John Henry, Why didn't you pay for this great thing that you claim you are doing? He refused to talk to us about anything involving his father.

PHILLIPS: All right, final question, Lester. So what happens? Ted Williams, you know, his head in one jar, his body in another. I mean this is gruesome. It just sits there until something is paid? What happens now?

MUNSON: Well it's as grotesque as anything can be.

One thing that you might hope would happen is that given the material that is in our article, the material that Larry Johnson, the former employee, has put together, maybe this material will be enough for the court in Florida to reconsider and to recapture Ted Williams' body and to do what his final wishes were to spread his ashes over the fishing waters near Florida.

PHILLIPS: Finally be able to rest in peace. Lester Munson, thank you so much.

MUNSON: You're welcome.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com